Poltergeist
by spearmintsparrows
Summary: How far will Nathan and his partner go to save Haven? Things begin to unravel, spark, and alight when Ryeland Shields returns to find something like solace in the hometown she forgot. But while secrets lie dormant in human hearts, Haven never forgets.
1. Stuck on Repeat

**A/N SEASON FINALE SPOILERS! DON'T READ IF YOU WISH TO AVOID THESE! I'll feel horrid if I ruin the show for you D: . OCs to be further explained C: . Ryeland 'Rye' Shields is the main character. She has a history in Haven. Neal, Christopher, and Janet are just regular townsfolk. Liam Bennett will play a bigger role as the story goes on. Rye has connections with Dave, Vince, Duke, and a sort of by-association reputation with assorted other members of the Haven community. Please bear with any out-of-characterness that goes on. All flames will be used to make crème brulee, and I will not share.**

Lucy and Nathan looked from me to the man protruding from the wall. Despite the blood spilling down his face, passed his limbs, and trickling over the debris, his chest still rose with labored breaths. I lifted a trembling fist, panning out the fingers to rub my face. As soon as I moved, Lucy pulled her gun on me. A second later, Nathan followed suit.

"I didn't mean to do that." I whispered, fingertips freezing against my skin. I paused a beat, not knowing what to do with myself, but feeling the sickness creep up on me. "Can you-will you put those away? They'll make me hurt you, I think."

Lucy didn't waver, but decidedly lowered her gun. I didn't bother looking back towards Nathan. Lucy was the one with the trigger finger that concerned me.

"Speaking of which," she said, "what exactly did you just do?"

I played with the mug in front of me, smoothing the handle like I used to smooth out Liam's shirts. I couldn't meet Nathan's eyes when he'd set it down minutes ago. Staring distantly at the warm tea, I still couldn't meet his eyes. There was no way I'd attempt it with Lucy.

"So let's start at the beginning." I think Nathan took the lead there because Lucy thought he could identify with me better. He couldn't. "Why did you do that to Neal? And Janet? I'm going to assume you're responsible for her, too, since it seems to fit with what you can…do."

I glanced up from the mug, around the Gull, worried Duke might come in. I didn't want to face his judgment, too. "Neal was an accident. Janet…Christopher made me angry. But I still kind of meant it. I'm not sorry she's the one that ended up with the fallout."

"Christopher made you angry, so you took it out on Janet? That seems fairly misdirected."

I laughed, not a cruel sound, but something too ironic for them to understand. "Sorry. I guess it does seem really vindictive. Okay. Janet made Christopher mad, and I took that from him. Then I took it out on Janet. I didn't think he'd be that…angry. But I should've known. Christopher's bottled up a lot more than anyone cares to notice."

There was a brief, painfully loud silence as Nathan and Lucy took that in.

"You take emotions?"

"Sure. That's it. It's a double-edged sword. I can take it into me, and I can put it out. It's just. If I take too much in, it breaks out. If I give too much out, I can't feel anything. Not for days. Like what happened with Janet. I underestimated how much pain that boy was in. I just can't help myself. I've got to try, don't I? I've got to try to make them happy. I once made a farmer kill his wife, when too much broke loose. Made a three-car pile up. Took off one of my own toes when I couldn't feel." My voice petered out into a whisper, and I stopped speaking.

"You can't fix people like that." Lucy. "They might end up happier, but they won't know why, and that'll kill them just as quick."

"That's what Liam said."

"Liam was a wise guy."

"He was, once upon a time. Now he's just dead." I met their eyes. "You can take me in, you know. For assault. I did more than my fair share of that."

"We won't blame you for being troubled."

"You haven't asked Neal. He's the one in the hospital gown, with tubes stuck through him. His only crime is being an epic asshole."

"That's the only crime worth charging here."

"I'll do it again. And again. And then again, and maybe then it'll be to you or someone you actually love. I told you. I'm addicted." It was true. I'd tried a hundred ways to stem that illness, that sick tugging that handed me the gears to how people worked. How they felt. It never worked. Not once, not for any amount of time. Not after Liam died.

"We have a way in Haven of handling the troubles, and the troubled." Nathan.

"I don't need to be handled. I need to be fixed, or I need to be broken good enough so I can't work. And neither of those will happen, because that would be just too damn easy."

"Here. I've got to pee. And we've got a problem. So you two brainstorm and fill me in when I get back." Lucy walked off towards the back of the Gull, leaving me stranded at sea with the other half of the partnership. The moral, too-nice-for-his-own-good half.

"Where's Duke?" I asked. I didn't want to see him right now, but thinking about someone familiar, someone who remembered Liam, made everything a little more okay.

"He's decidedly out. Doing business, probably."

"Looking for the person out to kill him, probably." At Nathan's sharp look, I continued. "Yeah, I know. Maybe you and I had nothing to do with each other back in the day, but Duke was always around. So he told me."

"Rye."

"It's okay. I'm used to everything I care about being in mortal danger. I wouldn't know what to do any other way."

Silence. Thought.

"I remember, you know. I remember you. From school. I remember liking you. You were a good guy. People weren't as good to you as you were to them. Duke and the tacks. I beat him up for that, later on. He was a horrible child. But he's a good man." I rubbed my face.

"I think I would've liked to see." A pause. "You know what though? I almost hated him more because I _couldn't _feel the tacks. Sick, right?"

"I know all about sick. And that doesn't quite make the mark. You can feel though, now. Your partner. She can make you feel. I could, too." I took my first sip of tea, now cold from all the talk. It tasted too sweet to be tea, like whoever made it added a few hundred packets on purpose, to coax me out of my shock. Sweet.

"How do you know?"

"She touched your shoulder, earlier. And you just stopped, like a clock. It was nice."

"How do you think you could? Numb's not a feeling."

"Isn't it? But no. It's not that sort of feeling. But I can take it away. Take it in, reallocate it."

"That's…wrong. Tempting. But wrong."

"Everything's wrong in Haven. It wouldn't last forever, Nathan. That's another thing about Haven. Nothing lasts. Especially the things that matter most." I reached across the table with no ulterior motive. Barely touched the tips of his fingers, touching him as little as possible. His face stayed blank, tense.

"I can't feel it." He said.

"You can now." I took it, took the numbness there in the tips of his fingers. "I just lost feeling in two of my toes."

And he took in a breath. And he felt. Like I knew he would. I sat back, letting him keep the warmth in his fingers. I could lose my toes for a couple of hours.

"It's different from when Audrey does it."

I wanted to say 'Her name's not Audrey any more', but I understand. She'll always be Audrey, and she's always been Lucy. "That's because you're only feeling her. This time, you're actually feeling. Feeling surfaces, textures, everything. Maybe if you two held hands, you could still do that."

"If we two did what?" Lucy sat back down next to Nathan. I nodded at her, just a little bit, to let her know I knew what she did. And that I was grateful.

"It's nice to catch up with Haven."

"Is it? Haven's very…Haven. So what did you two come up with?"

Quiet.

"Great. You two didn't say anything at all about how to fix this, did you?"

"We were getting there." Nathan said. "In a very abstract, not really kind of way."

"Great."

"You could always lock me in a padded room."

"You're not crazy."

"Well, I actually meant so I don't hurt myself. Because that's what happens when I don't have any emotions around me."

"You don't deserve that." Lucy.

"Maybe I didn't, not at first. Maybe it's not my fault I can't control it. But I've always had the easy out, and I should suffer for what I lack in courage." Liam had thought like them, which made me like them a little better and miss him a little more. He'd already known to keep the knives away. He started to keep the letter openers away, too. And then he learned to burn the toothpicks. Or else I'd make shallow little cuts forever, that would never ever do anything in the long run. "Liam always told me I just need to stay in my own head, feel my own skin. He made me a playlist, once, to listen to everywhere I went."

"Did it work?"

"It did. For the longest time. I never knew if it was because he loved me, or because the troubles can't do much when you're out of Haven."

"Do you still have the list with you?" Nathan.

"I buried it with him. I thought I was promising him that I'd finally mastered myself, and that I wanted him to know what he did for me. It seemed less fake than the flowers put there by people he didn't even know."

"We'll make you a new one. And we'll be around. You won't be alone dealing with this."

"You're too sweet, Nathan. Just say it, please. You'll be around, because this little town can't risk it if I really snap." I smiled at him, something resigned and genuine. "Haven might have made me, but it's seriously lacking in management skills. Don't worry. I'll stay close."

"Rye. I mean it. You're not alone."

"I know. It'd be better if I was. But I'll take what I can get." I drained the last of the tea, the sugar at the bottom sliding across my tongue in a forcefully sweet rainbow. "We'd better let Duke have his Gull. He'll have a hissy when he gets back. An endearing hissy. But a hissy nonetheless. See you two around."

I put my mug in the kitchen sink and made it to the doors before I felt his hand on my shoulder. I looked down at his fingers, not feeling the bottom of my shoes with my toes, but thinking how he must be feeling the fabric of my scarf.

"I'll take you home."

"Whatever you think's best, officer."


	2. Standing on the Faultline

The next morning, I decided to walk to the Gull and get coffee. But mostly I just wanted to see Duke. My hair blew around my face hectically with the early morning wind. Pushing me away from my destination. Haven was always pushing me away and pulling me back. I ended up at the Gull about an hour before it opened, plenty of time before the morning rush-or as rush-y as it got in a small town like Haven. I picked the lock on the front door and made my way to the bar. I grabbed two mugs from beneath the sink and set the coffee to brew.

"Do you make a habit of breaking and entering into peoples' businesses, then stealing their coffee?"

"Only when it's inconvenient for you, Duke." I poured the coffee and added in some Bailey's for mine. "You want some?"

"Sure."

"Good stuff." I handed him his mug and took a sip from mine.

"So what makes me so special to earn a visit from the Coffee Thief this early in the day?" I could hear the fondness in his voice.

"Well, you have all the alcohol to mooch…But, really? I need to see a few familiar faces."

"I'm flattered-really, but how about we try this again, Rye. That's not the only reason. In fact, I got a call from two very interested parties that says I should be watching out for you. They wouldn't tell me why. What exactly does that mean?"

I laughed, a brief humorless thing. "Nathan and Lucy. I guess you might as well know, too. You know the troubles a lot more intimately than a lot of people here would like to admit. You know what happened to Janet?"

"Yeah."

"I did that. You know what happened to Neal? I did that, too."

"So, you're the one out to school all the asses of Haven? That's a long, tedious task to undertake. I can't let you do that."

"Because you're one of those asses?"

"Because we make up most of the population, and it'd be a sad town without us. You'd have to dust up the tumbleweeds and forever strike a righteous pose. So…"

"Too much effort." I smiled, something real this time. "I missed you, Duke."

"Who wouldn't, Miss Rye?" Duke flashed me his trademark mischievous grin. Maybe a few things lasted in Haven. "So they want me to be some sort of keeper for you?"

"Ew. As if I'd let you. Creepy boat boy. I think their circle of trust is small enough that you were able to toe the line."

"Makes me sound exclusive."

"Makes it sound like there aren't a whole lot of people to trust in Haven."

"Never were."

"Never will be." We shared an uneasy look, thinking about the whole lot of people that were just fine with either one of us dying. "But, yeah. Back to the question. I guess you are something like my keeper, whenever I'm around and you're around. Maybe I'll let that happen almost often."

"Maybe you should. It might just keep our friendly neighborhood officers from breathing down our necks."

"Oh shut up. You love the attention." I smiled, again. It was nice to know there were still people in the world who could make me smile genuinely so often in one day. I took a bigger sip of my coffee. "So. I guess I'll decide not to be mad that they called my mommy on me. I was going to bring up my trouble some way anyways."

"What exactly is your trouble? It's not some She-Hulk thing is it? With the throwing people into walls and the catching people's cars on fire and the kittyfighting at the market?"

I cast him a faintly withering look. "Glad to see you looked into that sensitivity training we talked about. I manipulate emotions. And, sometimes, they manipulate me."

"Wow. Haven sure thrust some big girl responsibilities on you, big time. You handling it?"

"If I was handling it, I wouldn't need a keeper, would I?" The admission of my failure to control my trouble was surprisingly easy to say aloud. It might have had something to do with Duke being Duke. He accepted things as they were, and I could trust him to not stroke my ego.

"Well, get to it, Little Engine that Can't. 'Cause I sure don't need you going all vendetta on me and my not particularly loyal customers. You good?"

"I'm great." The old lines came even easier to me.

"You better?"

"I'm best." It was something Duke and I had done in grade school, before I left so suddenly. We'd challenge each other that way. And if you said best, you had better end up best. "I think I'm going to go for an adventure. And you can't come."

Thumbs pointed to his chest. "But this one's the keeper."

"But. No."

"You that upset I'm all in charge and responsible for you?"

"No. That part just makes me laugh." I flashed him my own fondly mocking smile, and went for the door. "If our friendly neighborhood officers call?"

"Hmmm?"

"I'm at Janet's. "


	3. Forgiveness is a Luxury

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs and these words C:**

I stood on the doorstep with the grimmest stone of reluctance settling in my stomach. There are a lot of things I like. I like thunderstorms. I like ribbon. I like coffee. I like rainbows. I like double ones even better. One thing that just never made that list, was the Latham family. They were cold, they were critical, and they tended to cast themselves as the aristocrats of Haven. And their offspring tend to be even worse. Which is why apologizing to one -especially one that you decked pretty well in high def. for the general public-is never, ever a pleasant thing to do. Especially when you regret what you've done. They take the opportunity to twist the knife a little deeper. I knocked as gently as I could, and counted my heartbeats as I waited.

As soon as the door opened, it was nearly shut just as quick. I put my arm out, catching the door painfully, feeling it grind into my bones. "Please."

"You. _You _are the one that has my daughter holed up in her house." Mrs. Latham's face was drawn in lines of distaste, some of which were caused by things both past and current. "Have you come to brutalize her even more? Don't answer that. You just walk right off her doorstep and take your trouble elsewhere."

My breath caught for a moment, afraid. But then it found its regular rhythm. Mrs. Latham may well know the troubles, but there was no way she could know of mine. Not even with her long memory. "Look. I know I did wrong there. Okay? I do. I know. Which is why I'd be really, really grateful if you'd kindly let me apologize to Janet."

"You think you deserve forgiveness? For anything at all?" She leveled me with ice too far gone to ever really be eyes again. "No. You don't. But I'll let Janet tell you that herself." She left me there, with fingers twitching against my heart. Some things just hurt to hear, whether you believe them or not.

Janet appeared in the doorway a minute later, not appearing any kinder than her mother. "Did you come to look at it? Huh? Did you come to _laugh _at my ruined _face_? Well look at it. Because what you get is going to be a lot worse." I didn't bother telling Janet how completely high school she sounded as she gestured to the right side of her face. Her skin really did not taking bruising well. There were a few scratches and blotches resting all along her jawline, only to be crowned by a wicked shiner.

"That _is_ sort of why I came. To say sorry. Because, I am." The words tasted just a little bit false on my tongue. That was because, though she really didn't deserve what I'd given to her, I'd seen and felt what she did to Christopher, and I'd seen and felt her do a lot worse to a lot more people. "I was on this experimental medication, and I guess I didn't take the whole 'may cause irrational aggression' side effect seriously."

Janet just stared at me a moment through slitted eyes, like she was hoping concentrating on me hard enough would cause me to spontaneously combust. If it wasn't her, and if she wasn't bent on my imminent peril, I'd almost be flattered by the intensity there. "Then maybe you should think about actually putting up the _money _for some legitimate pills, and stop selling yourself out as a test subject. Though I guess that's all you're particularly good for, isn't it?"

I sighed. "Look, I know you're all a'burning with that righteous anger right there, but let's try to _not _act like we're three year olds. It's really unbecoming on you. By which I mean makes you look like a bitch."

She stood there, eyes wide, like she couldn't believe someone would defy her like that. She probably couldn't. "You did not just call me a bitch to my face, especially after you _assaulted me _in _public. _I could have you arrested. I _should _have you arrested. You know what? I could _sue you. _Sue that faulty drug company. I can _destroy _you."

"At least I didn't say it behind your back. And you will _not _have me arrested, and you will _not _sue me. Because, surprisingly, you're better than that."

"You know what?" She whispered. "I should've known it'd be you. Of course Liam's little guard dog would grow up to be his ghost's little guard _tramp _and attack me. You just can't let anything go, can you?"

For the first time in the conversation, her words actually meant something to me. Hurt me, a little. Made me angry, a lot. "Don't you talk about that boy like you didn't do your best to break him. Don't you talk about that man like you know a single thing about him, other than that he was the first to not give Miss Janet Latham everything she thought she deserved. Don't."

Janet's fingers twitched over folded arms, like she was insincerely trying _not _to strangle me on her porch in the light of day. "Get out of here. And watch yourself. " Her eyes lost their usual indignant, self-important glimmer and were stripped down to something I'd never seen her wear. Cold intelligence and something so incredibly malevolent, I almost took a step back. "You're not the only one in Haven who knows exactly how to play this game, Ryeland. By the end of the week, you'll bleed. Apology unaccepted."

"Apology withdrawn."


	4. Lie to Rest

**A/N Supershort, I know! But necessary. The chapters will get longer, m'dears C: Feed some constructive criticism to my review narwhal? **

"So…how was it?" Duke asked, drawing the words out with that mischievous smile. Honestly, I doubted he knew how to smile any other way by this point. "You didn't do a whole battle royale catfight without me to watch, did you?"

"Only with words. It's not funny Duke." I sank a bit in my seat, playing with the pepper shaker there on the table. Turning it back and forth, watching the grains fall helplessly in an endless cycle. "She is seriously unhinged."

"You didn't really think she'd say all was well in the little town of Haven just because you said sorry, did you? That's just not her style. How'd you explain it away, anyways? Your trouble."

"You never know what unapproved medications can get you to do." I said, not bothering to see his expression as he took that in.

"Not bad. Not buyable, because, hello, _Haven, _but not bad. So what _did _our small town princess say?"

"She threatened to have me arrested. Sue me. The usual, for humiliating her in public. It's not that hard to do."

"No one will believe her. Or at least, no one will _side _with her. Her Barbie box wasn't really 'charm included'. "

"Really? 'Cause you were kind of in line to sweep her off her feet in high school. You know. Like those people who camp out weeks before a movie comes out? That was you with Janet." I gave him a pointed glance.

"That is entirely...true, actually." Met me with an unrepentant grin. "I just wanted to see what it was like to kiss a self-entitled proper lady."

"And?"

"-_And, _it bothered the hell out of you." It was almost difficult to imagine Duke as the lawless man he liked to play, considering how much he smiled. Then again, maybe not. Because it was always a pirate's smile.

"…She brought up Liam, Duke. That's not okay."

There was the briefest moment, in which Duke underwent one of those transformations you have to see to believe in someone. The charming womanizer side of him faded into someone both soft and cruel, someone who knew how to hurt, and knew how to fix. Someone I knew better than most.

"She would, wouldn't she?"

"She did."

"I'm not gonna bother asking if she said something horrible, because she did, or if you can be okay with that, because you can't. Just don't let it make you do crazy things. Liam doesn't need you to defend what you had, okay? He just needs you to keep yourself together, and beat this thing. Beat this place." He moved from his spot across the room, polishing glasses with a rag, and stood over the chair facing me from the other side of the table. "Or else this small town will choke the life out of you."

I stood up, and as I did, I shook off the anger, the worry over that violent dislike in Janet's eyes, the cool hatred in her mother's. I shook off how I felt on that doorstep, feeling the truthful, utter promise of retribution inside Janet's veins, and the way it seemed forgiveness was just another luxury I could never afford. I shook it all off, and leaned in to hug Duke.

"You're sweet, Keeper. I'll tell the coppers you're doing a fine job."

"Don't you go telling any lies about how I'm all self-sacrificing and one of those dashing everyday heroes hidden cleverly in sight. Well, okay, you can tell them the dashing part."

I patted him lightly on the cheek, equal parts patronizing and affectionate. "Don't tell lies to someone who can tell just how you feel."


	5. Brushstrokes and Broken Glass

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the backstory and original characters (but how fabulous would it be if I owned more than that :D ) .**

**A/N Ohkurr. Please bear with the flowery, lengthy descriptions. I thought before the main plot continues, it would be necessary to get a better look at the layers of Ryeland. Suggestions/ constructive criticism appreciated to help me write better for Nathan and Lucy/ Audrey. Enter review narwhal with petite top hat and fake applied mustache ;{D. **

I'd spent the last few days doing what was right, and what I thought I should do. Now, as I left Duke and the Gull behind me, I vowed to myself to do what I _wanted _to do. I made my way back to the old Shields-Bennett home, acutely aware it was more house than home with the family's long absence. The wood of the walls was greying in all the right places and the yard was tangled with weeds in all the wrong ones. It made my heart do twisty little sad things, looking at mother's plants all gobbled up by neglect and wear. I swallowed it all down and went in, stopping just long enough to pick up the vase of dried flowers on the hall table and bring them into my room with me. I ignored the disheveled sheets and broken glass on the bedside desk, placing the vase and turning to string my leather message bag over my shoulder. I took a single dried flower from the vase as a last thought, and left that place that used to be warm for the cold of the outside.

I ended up walking aimlessly for a while, letting my feet decide for themselves where they wished to go. It turned out they wanted to go to the backdrop of my family's last moments together, a field 'just between here and there'. My second mother had promised me pixies once lived there, and that's why the grass glitters just as bright in the moonlight as the day. I sat down in that magic grass, crossing my bare legs against the fabric still wet with dew. My fingers knew just which pocket held the brushes, and just what pockets held the papers and colours, even though it'd been a raving long time since I'd had to do anything with any of it.

The fibers of the brush I picked were coarse from misuse, and I thought of mother's plants again, withering from too little love and too much sun. I spun the brush a couple times in a colour…blue…and began working it into the brush just as the rain came down in its first sheets. I smiled at the brush, really smiling at Haven in general, thinking it could once again ruin me. It was a beautiful thing to smile again, a real soft smile, something not broken and not quite what I'd given Duke or Nathan, David, or Audrey. It was the girl beneath the bronze hair and green-grey eyes. The one beneath the tattered curtain. Most importantly, she was the one on fire, the bright burning girl of stars who used to get into the wildest situations with Duke, and get out of them just as quick. I was exuberantly, irrevocably me. And it was like a drug.

I fed on my own sunshine despite the rain, twisting the blue into white and purple, fading the lines of its original identity. _You drop your paint set on yourself or something? Look like a rainbow got drop-kicked right of the sky. _For some reason, the memory of Liam's words did everything but make me cry and retreat back into the somber little cube that made my twenty-plus-year-old-self look like an abandoned marionette. _I've never seen a rainbow with pink legs and a blue nose. _On a whim, I sought to renew that memory in the field. I striped the brush across my face, over my legs lying pale against the hem of my pale yellow sundress. With each stroke, I forgot another person and another problem. Soon all that was left above the grass and beneath the sky was me and the happier ghosts of my childhood.

I was so preoccupied with the paint and the rain…the memories and the quiet, I didn't notice them until they were standing above me, with the most marvelously bemused looks on their faces. I sobered a bit, the rain coming back into me with a nonexistent swishing. I looked up at them as they looked down on me, and smiled the smallest smile ever smiled, maybe not even spilling over my eyes and onto my lips. It said that they were not to question too much, and in exchange, I would lie just enough. That they'd stumbled upon a wild, indescribable secret.

"I see someone's taking her self-portrait a little seriously." Lucy stated.

"At the moment, it's something much better to be taken seriously." I said. "As opposed to all the really serious things, that might just have me spontaneously implode. Duke sent you out here?"

"Duke sent us out here." Nathan confirmed, something curiously curious in his eyes as he met mine.

"Right. Killing that boy." At their somewhat wary looks, I rolled my eyes. "_Kidding. _Seriously? He's my almost best friend in a very convoluted, warped sort of way. But I _will _do something to make him regret his dutiful keeping of his keeping duty. It will be bothersome and aggravating, and entirely mean-spirited. But it'll be less drastic than homicide, and completely legal. I assume you've crashed my Batcave for a very noble, official type of purpose?"

"Just checking on you." Nathan. I appreciated the sincerity to his concern, falsely placed but something I'd selfishly like to keep whether I deserved it or not.

"And your trouble." Lucy. I appreciated her straightforwardness. It felt more real than sympathies and condolences, and I'd had my fill of those for the longest time.

"Well, then. We're both being excessively bearable."

"No urges to play with peoples' emotions? Or take out your own?"

I sighed. "Don't ask me questions you know the answers to. It's really…annoying, actually. And I like you two, misguided as you are. So I'd like to keep liking you. I didn't feel the need to rough that presumptuous muggle up any more…I'm assuming Duke put that in the report, too, the visit…and I haven't been around anyone else all day. So we're in the clear. Really."

"Muggle?" Lucy asked, brow furrowed.

"It's what regular people are called in the Harry Potter series." Nathan turned to explain to her.

"Your life is average." I raised my eyebrows. "That's what me and Liam always called the nontroubled. And Janet is nontroubled. Unless a supernatural personality defect counts these days."

"They don't." Lucy smiled. "But nice of you to try to include her."

"It's getting late. D'you want a ride home?" Nathan offered, focusing on me.

I glanced up at the sky, which really had dissolved from a rainstreaked blue into the first purples of night. I turned back to the officers, raising one eyebrow.

"I could manage, but I've got this feeling that was more of a request than an offer." I tossed my supplies carelessly into the bag, having cared for what was important. I began to walk ahead of them to their blue car. "I wouldn't want to interfere with your vigilant surveillance of Haven's current Undesirable No. 1 ." I let the smile slip onto the outermost reaches of my lips, so they could see the humour given that they couldn't read it in my body.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I told you she'd get it. Sugarcoating not required."

"I had this crazy idea that being polite might be nice. And, you know, _civilized." _Nathan said, rolling his eyes right back. I enjoyed the tangible feel of good humour in the air.

I laughed. And it must've been the first time they'd heard one from me, because they both stopped and stared a bit. I looked at them funny right back, because I didn't have some magical fairy laugh or anything. I'd been told once it sounded like the sun hitting the water, whatever that might mean.

"You're happy." Nathan sounded surprised.

"Maybe, for the first time in months, I'm kind of glad to be me."

I wasn't when we got up to my house and found broken windows and paint thrown across the front.


	6. Creatures of Tea

All three of us got out of the car, silhouetted by its headlights as we observed all the damage. Nathan acted in business mode, walking ahead of Lucy and I to officially catalog the yellow paint splashed all over the grey house. The messily broken front windows, still bleeding glass shards onto the ground. I stood in the same spot as Nathan walked from each end of the house to the other, around back and to the front again. _She broke my house. She broke my home. _I could feel something equal parts anguished and angered building in me, but it wasn't a big something. She'd have to try much, much harder to trump the vast series of unfortunate events that lined my life. Across the front door, the vandal had switched to an actual paintbrush, with thick, self-righteous strokes. 'Ryeland Shields…is our favorite violent freak'. Kind of catchy, actually. I felt Lucy's eyes on me, and my fledging respect for her grew a bit. Nathan kept his eyes on the damage that was done. Lucy kept her eyes on the damage that could be.

"Well, thank you officers for the wonderful company and the ride home. I'm sure you'll have plenty of chances to casually run into me in the middle of nowhere tomorrow." I offered them a collective smile and made to the door, willing them to play the game my way. Of course they wouldn't.

"Cute punchline, but we all know we're not leaving you here alone after this. What if whoever did this comes back, and they've got the grit to hurt you?" Lucy asked, far from expecting an answer.

I smiled again. A sad one this time, because this time I was telling them the absolute truth. "They don't. Not yet. Because this person knew very well I wouldn't be home. They knew very, very well what I could do to them if I was." I was almost in.

"You can't be alone after this, Rye. For everyone's safety." Lucy.

I turned back to face her. Felt a little bit of rabbit in them both as they worried themselves over what I might do. Felt it mixed in with their concern and sense of duty, and a whole line of finer emotions most people don't know the real names of. I opened my mouth to speak and stopped short, curious at the wetness on the back of my hand. I wiped at my eyes, and frowned at the tears collected there. A physical shudder went through me, and only then did little rabbit me start to worry itself.

"My trouble's not my master. You get that? You better. Because if you don't, you can call in our small town equivalent of a swat team, and drag me out here and now. I'm allowed to be upset, yeah? I'm allowed to feel. I promise you things would be one literal hell of a lot worse if I didn't care." I smudged the residue of my weakness across the fabric of my dress, and kept my eyes on the two cops standing conflicted in front of my wounded house.

"We don't want to make you the villain here, Ryeland. It's overwhelmingly clear you're not. You're certainly not the first good person in Haven to draw the worst sort of short straw there is. Will you please just come with us, just to make a completely horrible situation a little bit easier?" I had a distinct, untroubled feeling that Nathan was usually cast as the voice of reason.

"No." I answered simply. He looked a tiny bit taken aback, like I'd suggested skinnydipping in Alaska on a school night. "I'm not leaving for something petty like this. But you two are welcome to crash here for the night."

Nathan and Lucy consulted each other, first with their eyes, then with their talk. In the end, they said yes. Which only made sense, because you don't leave a questionably unstable girl alone in the woods when a decidedly unstable one is out to even a very convoluted score.

"You two need to go get anything?"

"I can survive a night without shampoo and fresh clothes. And since little old me can, Nathan won't dare say it if he can't." Lucy smiled teasingly as Nathan cast her an exasperated look. He turned that look to me.

"I'm good."

"Of course you are." I waited for them to handle the car and led them into the house. "I've got shampoo and clothes that'll fit you fine, Lucy. And Nathan…I'll find some for you, too."

I felt oddly anxious as I let two outsiders into what was left of my world. The house felt a lot smaller, and almost complete with three people in it. They followed me silently as I showed them around, pointing out the kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and bathroom. They'd be staying in the living room, which had the best access to all ins and outs of the house.

"If you'd like, you can take a shower now while I go figure out a police report." I offered Lucy as we came back to the living room.

"I think I'll take you up on that."

"Good stuff. The towels are under the sink, and I'll leave the clothes on it." With that, Lucy left Nathan and I to our own devices.

"Do you want to talk about-" He paused, eventually defaulting to a vague hand gesture. "-any of this?"

"Not especially. I think I'd rather fix my windows before a disgruntled creature of the night comes to eat us in our sleep." I raised my eyebrows at him, not entirely sure whether I wanted him to keep talking or not.

"Well, we do know there are plenty of those in Haven." He had a nice smile. Not like Lucy's, which was endearingly blunt, like she'd played a trick on you and now you know it, too. Not like Duke's, which was definitely a shade of gray in a black and white sort of world. And definitely not like mine, which never really could decide what it felt. Nathan's said, simply, that he was not just the nice guy. It wouldn't really reveal more than that.

"And I think I ought to keep them all out before I totally let them eat you and Lucy first." I let the ghost of my laugh haunt my words, because I didn't want to give Nathan any more reason to be wary of me. And because I wanted him to like me. That was another thing I wasn't entirely sure about. Nathan trailed after me as I retrieved bags from the kitchen to quick-fix the windows. The paint seemed nearly dry already, so it could wait itself out awhile longer. Once I'd cataloged all the damages I could find, with Nathan's help to point out the few I'd missed, I dropped off a pair of my pajamas into the bathroom and returned to the kitchen to make us all some tea. We did that whole talking thing as I slipped the tea bags into the hot water.

"You don't seem like someone who's just had her home defaced."

"I don't think I know how that girl should look."

"Generally, she looks a little sick, a lot upset, and gets kind of shaky. You've got the shaky part down, but that's about it." He leaned against the counter, pointing laxly.

"Well look at that. " My fingers were actually clenching in brief spasms against the mugs. "Such is the life of someone accustomed to ignoring what she feels or doesn't feel."

"I wish I had the option."

I glanced up quickly, and fought the impulse to glance away just as quick. No. I'd said something stupid, and I had to face whatever fallout there was. "I guess you would. Sorry. You've got one of the worst ones you know."

"Worst what?" His face had a way of being completely open while he knew exactly where things were heading.

"Trouble. The kind where you've got no place to run, because everything that's going on is right under your skin." I passed him the green mug as the shower shut off in the other room.

"I'm not troubled."

"You're not?" It was a nonstatement. Just filler leading up to what I really thought.

"No. I've got idiopathic-"

"Neuropathy." I finished before he could. "Let's not lie to each other. Or at least let's not lie to ourselves." I took a sip of tea from the brown mug. "Having a trouble with feelings, it got me interested in the whole subject. And that's far from the type of condition you have."

"I'm not willing to believe that at this point."

"I believe you. So drink your tea-crappy tea, all we had left was that chai stuff-and keep being what you can."

"It's not that crappy."

I arched one eyebrow as he gagged a little. "It's completely crappy." We drank in silence.

"I've been thinking, about the Gull."

"Yeah?"

"And. About what you did. How you made my fingers work." For once, I wasn't exactly sure what I could read in someone's face. For once, I chose not to read what I could with my trouble.

"Your fingers work fine."

"They don't feel fine. They don't feel."

"Do you want that again?"

"Sappy as it sounds, the parts of me that _can _feel," Nathan pointed to his head, and, almost sheepishly, to his heart, "they're at odds with themselves. Logically, I know it's somehow morally wrong. But, logically, I know it might be the only way I can ever feel. I'm not counting Audrey into this. Because I can't hold her hand for eternity. And also…just because."

"Are you asking me a favour? Or justification for you to ask me for a favour?"

"I think…I don't know."

I sighed. "Look. You shouldn't feel bad for wanting to use what I can do. I'm expendable, and I make sense."

"Don't say that. Maybe that second one works fine, but you're not expendable. You matter, okay? And not just because you can help me, or because I'm supposed to care as an officer. Or because you've got a great track record of putting Duke in his place. I care because…"

"Because I'm something like you." I placed my mug in the sink, just to have a motion to rely on.

"Yeah."

Mind made up, I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He seemed surprised, but didn't physically stiffen or anything. Because I made sure he couldn't feel it. "You're alright, Nathan. Every time I'm in the vicinity, you've got it." I tapped him in each place as I spoke. "Face. Hands. Stomach. Feet." I didn't bother leaning down for that one. "Anything else, is special order. You have to ask. And I can't give you everything at once."

Nathan considered me with different eyes. "What will you lose?"

"Not everything. And not anything that matters in this case."

"Will it make it harder to contain your trouble, giving in to it?"

"I'm not giving into anything. And it'll be good for me to have something to focus on."

"Thank you."

"We'll see. Just try not to do a whole lot of that 'I'm a man of steel who can feel no pain, let's have me throw myself into dangerous situations for the sake of the greater good' thing I bet you really get into. And no self harm, for curiosity's sake or any other."

"Those all the rules?"

"Almost. Promise me, you won't stop caring when I stop being a novelty."

"I'm not quite like that, Ryeland."

"I didn't think you'd be." I leaned with my back towards the sink, thinking about paint and pajamas when Lucy came in.

"So, what's going on in here? Tragic declarations of love? Dramatic plots to bring our culprit to justice? The pensive drinking of-please tell me that's hot chocolate!"

"Nothing's going on."

"Just crappy tea."


	7. Flannel and Chess

The next morning, Lucy told me not to bother making any coffee. She and Nathan had decided to have us all meet up at the Gull and fill Duke in on last night's events, solely because he had drawn the straw to be my keeper. And that was another thing they wanted to talk about. I decided to let them have their way, because I knew there would be much greater battles to pick in the coming days. I left Lucy to call in to the Haven P.D. as I tugged Nathan into one of the reserved bedrooms. I refused to say abandoned.

"You're a skinny kid. Medium, right?" I asked as I gently rifled through the closet's contents. There wasn't a dresser in the room. My second mother had insisted on everyone sharing in the domestic duties, and Father had been an ultimately disgraceful folder.

"I'm not that skinny." I smiled briefly at the indignant note in Nathan's voice. It was kind of funny to hear him defend his man-ego.

"But you're a kid, right?" I enjoyed his defeat. That was the art of winning in a situation like this. I'd practiced a thousand different ways on Liam, and it was this tactic that always worked: offer two insults, and you'll always get them on the one they choose not to defend. There was always the possibility that they could counter both at once, but I'd learned that they generally focus on the one that hits them harder, and don't even realize the second until you point it out. It used to drive Liam crazy, at least for the five seconds it took for him to get me back.

"I'm obviously not that either."

"Obviously." I said in a serious, teasing tone. Before he could respond, I selected a shirt and handed it to him. "But that's convenient, because my father was a skinny kid, too. Would you wear this? My dad had fabulous taste when my mother shopped for him." Father would rest easier knowing I hadn't outed him as a genetic fashionista. The shirt was alternating shades of blue, grey, and white…a type of shirt Father would have described as 'a vintage flannel shirt in Collins plaid' as he read it off a page. And I would respond 'Right. So a lumberjack shirt'. Because, seriously? The thing was totally a lumberjack shirt.

"I'll wear whatever." Nathan said it like a typical guy, but by the way I'd seen him dressed, with his jackets and belts and tops that always had the perfect fit…I knew he was a Shields type of man. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean…um…it being your dad's right? Or Liam's…"

I laughed at him tripping over himself, to save him from himself. "It's going to good use. He'd like to know he passed on the 'ready-to-shout-timber' fall look right along."

"I'll wear it with pride, then." Such serious eyes. I looked away. Gripped my sleeves in grounding fists.

"Another thing, Nathan." I said as I paused at the door.

"Yeah?"

"Make sure when you feel…that we don't _know _you can feel. Unless you're ready to have that conversation with Lucy and Duke."

* * *

><p>Duke had three mugs of coffee waiting for us, mine doctored with some of that Bailey's from before. I shot him an appreciative look before walking up and slugging him on the arm, hard.<p>

"That was for ratting me out to the feds yesterday." I said unapologetically as Nathan and Lucy followed behind me. I kissed him on the cheek. "And that's for making me coffee."

"You know, I'm starting to feel like I'm receiving a whole lot of domestic abuse, and, hey, I'm not even your husband." Duke said dryly.

"Then talk to your cop friends." I gestured to Nathan and Lucy as they took two coffees and two seats. My eyes stayed on Nathan as he held the mug and took that first sip. It was curiously grand how awed he was by the feel of the most mundane things. He hid it almost well.

"Duke Crocker doesn't make friends with cops."

"And coincidentally, we don't make friends with second rate criminals. What an incredibly convenient coincidence." Nathan raised his eyebrows as he sipped from his mug.

"What's that, Farmer Nathan?"

"That's what I said!" Lucy said, beaming around her own mug.

"And in other news, someone's trying to run Ryeland out of town." Nathan said, eyes still slanting from the remark about the shirt.

"Who'd you piss off?" Duke asked, unconcernedly. "Oh, wait, everyone. Not especially surprised here, dearheart."

"Right here." I pointed to my chest.

"What?"

"That's where I'm so _not _feeling the support." I rolled my eyes. "Not that I was expecting it. Anyways. Whoever-and I'm being generously 'innocent until proven' here-is after me did a serious number on the house."

"-And that's a problem." Lucy. "Because we're trying to keep Ryeland from going postal."

I gave her a Look. "Seriously. You're like Duke with a sex change."

"What Audrey's trying to say, is that we need you safe, and we need you calm. Which obviously isn't going to be happening in your house at this point. So." He turned to Duke. "We were hoping you'd step up and let her stay with you for awhile, at least part-time. Audrey and I will take shifts, too. But she'd be here nights."

"Wait, wait, wait. When did this become a Ryeland Shields carpooling meeting? I thought we were just letting him know someone-still being generous there-is raining down some righteous retribution on me. I didn't agree to this." I said with a fair below zero degree of horror.

"Oh, right." Lucy said. "Ryeland, we're going to arrange some playdates for you over the next few days until your house is fixed and we figure out-for sure-who's responsible."

"Great. By which I mean really, really not. And I kind of intensely dislike all of you at the moment. But I'm no fool. So I'll allow this. For the sake of whoever might run into me when I decide I'm done playing their game." I finished my coffee in one fell swoop and settled in next to Duke by the counter. Felt the faintest whisper kiss of their unease at my words. They'd have to be big kids and handle that. Because it was entirely likely for me to get fed up real quick of the whole pitchfork and flaming torch mentality of this town. Maybe, if they could manage it, they'd trust me to not break any bones along the way. Maybe I could trust myself.

"Right. So. Me and Audrey have a whole job thing to get to. We'll stop here later on, and we'll see what we can do about your house."

And with that, the first official round of captivity began.


	8. A Taste like Rain

A/N : Another one of those chapters necessary for plot development :P Next chapter, something that will either make your heart happy dance or make you wish this was a book you can throw across the room will happen xD I don't own anything but Rye, the plot, and these words. My criticism narwhal would appreciate some grading on character portrayal C:

After Nathan and Lucy left, I followed Duke around the kitchen as he got ready to open the Gull for the day.

"You know, I'm real flattered and all by your undying devotion here, but I think you're confused on who's watching who. In other words-go sit in a corner or something, because I've got a business to run and I trust you not to burn down the town if I turn my back." His voice sounded a little harried.

"You couldn't handle undying devotion." I said. "And you know what? Don't even try to give me a time out, Duke Crocker. I wouldn't be stuck playing house with you all day if _someone _hadn't snitched me out to his cop friends."

"You wouldn't be playing house with me if _someone_ hadn't thrown our favorite resident jackass into a wall. Or set a car on fire. Or given Janet Latham a black eye. Or-"

"Okay, okay." I scowled. "So I kind of deserve the time out. But seriously? You still get, like, a whole stack of demerits. For telling on me. Because that's just way too elementary for you, dear."

"You just called me mature, in a convoluted sort of way." Smile.

"I just called you someone who's _supposed to _be mature. But is a total schoolboy instead. In a very direct sort of way."

"Right, so I have boyish good looks?" He grinned, and I did, too-a little bit. Because that's the sort of thing you do around people who make you feel like the sun.

"You aren't really out for blood, are you, Rye? The warpath isn't quite your scene." The sudden change in subject didn't surprise me.

"Not quite. I won't say they aren't setting me up for getting truly pissed. I'm fine though, for now. And I'd like to think you'd believe me."

"You'll tell me when you're getting there. So what are you going to do, between the time outs and the sleeping?"

"You think they won't watch me while I sleep?" I raised my eyebrows. "Sweet. Oh, wait. You will be. Huh. Not exactly an improvement. When I've got my rare inch of breathing space, I will be doing whatever's useful to me. You figure that one out and let me know."

"That would require me being helpful." Duke lowered his brows as he turned from the bar. "So what's this thing with you giving Nathan the stalker eyes this morning?"

"Stalker eyes?"

"You were watching him while he drank his coffee."

"I like to keep my eye on my parole officers."

"You're not even on parole, at this point. And something tells me you like to keep your eye on this officer in particular."

I could tell him about the deal I'd made with Nathan. I could set all the cards on the table, knowing that Duke wouldn't judge much one way or the other. But how much of the story was really mine to tell? So I made a decision in that moment, to tell all the truth that was mine.

"Maybe. I'm one of those odd types that likes to keep my friends close and my enemies not. Right now, Nathan fits into the first category. Why do you care either way?"

"I like to stay informed."

"Are you jealous?" The smile exceeded my voice.

"Do you want me to be?"

"Huh. No." I let out a sigh. "But no more talking about my questionable stalker eyes unless you want me to bring up yours."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I bet you write 'Audrey Crocker' in your diary and circle it with sweet little candy hearts." He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the sound of the door. And thus began the stream of customers.

Since I was stuck at the Gull for seemingly the rest of my natural life, Duke sent me to work. He gave me the choice of kitchen duty or bar service. Which honestly was no choice at all. I decided each was equal parts Duke's shameless manipulation of my circumstances for free labour and an opportunity for character development, so I rock, paper, scissor'd myself into bar service. All the job required was to stand at the counter, take orders, fill orders, and be pleasant about the whole process. That might sound fairly simplistic, but then you have to figure in the townspeople, which range from eccentric old ladies to loud young people to those decent few to people I think were born to step on flowers and model a frown as their only facial expression. Luckily for me, most of the decent ones came my way.

"I want a coffee." A dark-haired, shadowed young man.

"Preferences?"

"You're new, aren't you? I've never had to walk anyone else here through a simple cup of coffee."

"I haven't been around. Just filling in as a favour to Duke. Tell me once, and I won't forget." I don't invest in all that 'the customer is always right' businesses hand out at their employees' expense, but I kept polite. Though it wasn't actually any sort of favour to Duke, it was a small something I could do to start to even out all he's done for me, all he's been doing for me. For not sending me out the door from the first, and for investing any sort of faith in me. That, and the guy on the other side of the counter looked like a whole lot of fail was raining down on his life-and maybe coffee was all he was asking for at this point.

"Just straight black."

"Oh. Huh. That really is a simple cup of coffee." I fixed it for him, and drew a pair of hands on the napkin it was centered on, so that it looked like the hands were cupping the mug. I wasn't about to draw him unicorns or smiley faces or unicorn smiley face hybrids. That wasn't what he needed.

"…You're good." He said after a sip. "Your style looks familiar, too. You take art classes around here? No. I remember. Teagues, right? He's got a print with lines like these at the_ Herald's_ office."

I nodded. I'd given Vince a few sketches years back when my summers had been filled with Duke and Liam and hours watching the Teagues brothers work. I was surprised the kid would recognize the lines though, considering how old and unrefined the sketches had been. He must be an art student himself.

"Then that's you, too, huh? The Shields girl. My grandmom's been talking about you-the whole town, too, from what I hear."

My stomach compressed itself into odd, painful shapes as I braced myself for the judgment. I didn't actually care much about what was said about me. People were bound to talk after the type of things I'd done, who I'd been in the past, and who they thought my family was. But the kid, I felt like he was worth more than the way Haven decayed the hearts of its residents, in one way or another.

"Maybe you should try and take out all that intensity on a canvas. It'd involve a lot less collateral damage, and I think there's a good chance of something beautiful under it all."

"You know what?" I asked. "I'm glad I didn't draw you a unicorn."


	9. Fingerpaint and Psychosis

**A/N Okay, so the happy hearts and book throwing scene didn't make it in because the prerequisite scene ended up much longer than I expected! So please enjoy this still fairly dramatic interlude while I construct the next owo. I still do not own anything but Rye and these words, and I'm also fairly certain any product names mentioned are purely fictional. Thank you for reading C: . **

Once the customers started coming in smaller threads, I decided that Duke and the rest of the staff could handle it from there. I wasn't looking to bail out on them, but there was a whole pitcher full of things that had to be done and needed to be said. Starting out with the art store and ending somewhere down memory lane. I walked over to Duke as he finished mingling with one of the regulars. I hesitated for just a moment, a little bit awed by how much he had grown. It was obvious he was still my pirate on the inside—complete with questionable importing-but on the outside…hell, Duke was a _man. _A good one, too. I was glad he was the kid I'd punched after he made fun of my pigtails in first grade.

"So. I've got a few errands to run. Which. I will be running now. See you at five?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop a minute, sweetheart. Remember the story about the babysitter and the time outs? Yeah. Remember who's playing the babysitter? Me. And I am so not gonna get paid if Mom and Dad come home and Baby-i.e., _you-_is not in her corner. So no. You will most definitely not be running errands right now." Duke leveled his Serious Eyes on me, and I grimaced.

"Why did I have to come back to this town _after _you got all responsible?"

"Because fate hates you."

"But you love me. And honestly, I'm kind of leaving either way. I just owe it to you to tell you first."

"This seriously can't wait? I swear. Audrey and Officer Farmer Brown are never going to trust me with anything. Ever. Which, on second thought, would make them stop bothering me." He contemplated that for a moment unnecessarily. Beyond my trouble, I could feel how important their opinions of him really were.

"It seriously can't wait. Trust _me, _Duke. Please. I promise I'll be a good little member of society. And I'll check in, and I'll be back right on time. And I'll cook you dinner. And I'll stop saying 'and'." I didn't bother willing him with my eyes. I didn't need to. Duke knew me more than well enough to know that I say what I mean and mean what I say. The Hatter himself might be proud.

"…I'll do dinner. You make the plum dumplings. If Audrey and Nathan throw a fit….well, don't think I'm above throwing you under the bus." He closed his eyes, resigned. "Be back by five. Five o' _one_, and I'm sending the hounds after you."

"You don't have hounds."

"I'll find some. Better?"

"Best." I leaned up on my toes to give him a proper hug. "See you then, Croc."

I walked along the Haven sidewalk absently. As always, it wasn't the bright sky or scratched cars or faded signs that caught me. It was the people. I felt them there, ever present in my bones. The man on the bench at peace with a newspaper, and the happy woman on the corner handing them out. The girl sitting just off the curb, crying her eyes blurry over a broken toy. The faces changed and the places changed, but the feelings never went away. My trouble never went away. _Except for Liam. _

The art store was built in the shape of nostalgia, with a matching layer of dust on the edges of the windows. The door didn't ring as I entered. I wondered if they'd ever replaced the first. No one noticed me as I travelled the aisles, turning back to those summer days where the lady at the counter used to give me scrap paper and broken paints. Now her granddaughter managed the place. I found what I was looking for with ease. I measured the canvases with my eyes, discerning how many I could carry and how many I'd need to tide me over with my trouble. Easily a hundred. But I couldn't carry a hundred, and, checking my pockets, I found I couldn't afford a hundred either. So I selected a good eleven and made my way to the counter.

"Did you find everything alright, Ms. Shields?" The girl asked with a small smile. It warmed me a bit, the lack of assumption in her voice. The lack of distaste or superiority. I wouldn't expect a thing less of Marigold Farley's grandchild.

"I did, thanks. Is Miss Mari around?" I wondered as she rung up my purchases.

"She's been in bed the past couple of days. Just a season fever, she says. I'll tell her you asked after her. I think she'd like that."

I nodded my thanks and turned to leave, when I remembered something else I needed to buy. "Hey, Darlene, do you still carry those old Checkman watercolours?"

"Actually…yeah, we've got a few stashed in around the rest. They're an aisle before the easels."

They were the best. Maybe not a name brand, or anything especially fancy at all, but they were something from the past that might be enough to ground me in memories, make me forget the electric compulsion to dabble in the emotions of others. I grabbed a couple cases of them, fumbling with the last of my crumpled bills and petty change. I was smoothing out the worst of the bills when I felt the most unholy tremble of anger I'd felt in awhile.

"You."

I turned, expecting to find a quietly discontent woman with mousy hair and cracked spectacles. Instead, I found a seething one with newly dyed hair and the meanest look in her eyes.

"Leanne?"

"Don't even _address _me, Ryeland Shields. I can't _believe _you've got the audacity to parade yourself around town like some tragic hero, after what you did to Janet Latham and Neal Pierce. Because they hurt your _feelings. _Like you're some fucking misunderstood artist." Her fingertips trembled around the paint in her hands. "You ruin us."

"I'm so not doing this, Leanne. You have absolutely no idea what went on, and you've got no grounds to say a _syllable _about it. What kind of person am I? What kind of person are _you _to turn on me the second I get back, after what my family did to help you? Maybe I deserve to be judged for what I did, but that's reserved for someone else." My own anger began to scrape its way through my veins, and I swear I heard my trouble chanting in the back of my skull. _Fight. Fight. Fight! _I bit my lip, thinking about Duke, face drawn with disappointment. Nathan, Lucy…_Liam. I should think about Liam. _

"You know what? You want to spill some bad blood? You want to be an artist? Own up to your _art." _Leanne threw her words at me, and with them, an arc of red paint. It rained down on me, nothing like the play I'd had in the field. Rivulets of it pooled at the base of my throat, threaded through my hair, down my front. I could taste it on my tongue. "There. A scarlet letter for a scarlet girl."

I'm sure it was my shock that kept me from using my trouble. I wanted to say that I was just that good of a person, but if I'd been in my mind-or out of it, depending on how you took it-Darlene would be one wall short. I hastily walked away from the scene, struggling with myself as the realization of what had just occurred began to sink its teeth into me.

"Rye!" Darlene said as she saw me. "What happened?"

"Don't worry yourself, Darlene…it's okay. I….I need to get out of here. That's it."

"Don't you walk away from me!" Leanne finally took pursuit, stalking after me in her short steps, pointing. "You really think you just deserve that? I'm going to _watch _you walk down that street. And you better own it."

"Leanne, what is _wrong _with you?" Darlene shouted, coming to my side. Leanne rushed at me then, striking me across the face as Darlene tried to shield me. A gasp fell passed my lips as I felt the friction settle on my skin.

"That's it; I'm calling the police." Darlene ran to the phone on the counter, pressing the numbers with haste. "And you stay right there, Leanne, because I _promise you _I will send those officers on a manhunt."

"It's not me they should be taking away." She said, still glaring at me.

My fingers cradled my face, my brain failing to process a thing. This wasn't right. Sure, pretty much everyone in Haven had their reasons to hate me right now. But this was…too sudden. Too forceful. It didn't connect. The Leanne I knew might be driven to badmouth me-there were so few people in Haven I expected any breed of loyalty from. But this _attack. It must've bled. _I realized. _The anger, _our _anger, I must've shoved mine onto her when I was trying not to freak out on her. _Which was warped into something gnarled and toxic…but at least it was me. It wasn't her who got hurt. I didn't hurt someone else. Did I deserve this? So much pain and drama, so few reasons for redemption…

I came back to earth with the banshee call of sirens. How long had I stood there, being numb? Darlene was coming with a towel, Leanne was brooding. And I was lost. Then the police arrived, to see it all. My only thought was '_I hear the hounds.' _


	10. Cuffs Made of Grey

**A/N: Sorry it's been so long~! Work's picked up a lot over the last few weeks. I'll try my best to fit in some typing time wherever I can. So. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. I might adjust it later to fit the recent plot change I decided. Hence. You are warned owo. Also, I apologize in advance for Lucy's somewhat OOC streak. I'm learning. Thanks for reading :D**

It was Nathan and Lucy who found me in the end. Heaven knew I had no way of helping myself.

"We've been called in about a public dispute, please-Ryeland?" Nathan stopped midsentence as he found me at my standstill, fingernails still digging into my skin. "This isn't good."

"What happened?" Lucy asked, pushing passed Nathan to approach me. I barely registered her over the white noise going on in my head. "Ryeland." She grabbed my arm and I flinched.

"I'll tell you what happened-" Leanne cut in, bouncing back from her moody silence. "That bitch came in here acting like she owned the place."

"Leanne! I swear." Darlene shook her head angrily. "It's like everyone's taken a crazy pill in this town. Don't listen to her, Nathan. She and Ryeland just got into a little argument in the paint aisle and things got a little messy. That's all. Oh, and Leanne hit her."

Nathan turned back to me, looking over my face for the phantom of Leanne's slap. Lucy loosened her grip on my arm and steered me to look at her. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." I murmured, forcing the tension out of my body. With the trouble lacing my veins, I had no room for anything else. And it was obviously there, under my shock. I just didn't know what it wanted from me besides what it had already taken. My family, my friends…dignity, reason, choice. What was left beside my bones and soul? "It's just a bruise and some paint. No blood or anything mixed in, for either of us."

"…Do you want to press charges?" Nathan asked dutifully, probably at a loss.

"You better not." Leanne said. "Just try to, Shields. Next time I'll have something a lot more permanent than paint to match the blood on your hands."

"Can someone get her out of here? She's bothering me." Lucy complained, addressing the other two cops who must've been in the area when the call was made. One of them nodded and escorted Leanne out, hustling as she began to rant about the injustice of it.

"If you'll handle the Shields girl, I'll take care of the witness statement." The other officer said.

Lucy, Nathan, and the man exchanged a few official procedures, then the two partners led me to the door. I turned from Lucy's hand on my back as Darlene called my name.

"After all this trouble….paint something nice, please." She offered me a brave smile as she extended the bag of supplies I'd left lying on the counter. I'm not sure what I smiled back, or if it was a smile at all. The shop door rang shut into a barrage of silence.

"So." Lucy began, leaning on the 'o'. "Want to tell us the off the record version of what happened in there?"

"What always happens." I kept my eyes on the pavement, walking ahead of them towards where I'd really meant to go the whole time.

"…Your trouble?" Nathan asked cautiously. What was he wary of? It's not like I could destroy his whole life or anything.

"That as much as anything else. It didn't start out that way." My hand found its way back to my face in a tired cycle. The paint was not yet dry and smeared down my cheek. I wasn't going to think about the murder scene I must've looked like. "I was trying to hold my anger, but I accidentally pushed it out and into her. Such a rookie mistake…the sort of thing I would've done in middle school. On her own, she probably would have just dug the knife in a little and let it be."

"You've had your trouble since middle school?"

"…Fifth grade." I qualified absently.

"How did you control it?"

"Liam. As always. He made me rhymes to say for each emotion."

"Not to break into the interesting backstory here, but you're going in a very wrong direction. The Gull's back that-a-way." Lucy spoke up, calling us all to a halt.

"I'm not going to the Gull." I said.

"Actually, you kind of are. There's this whole awkward conspiracy going on that wherever you end up, bad things follow. You're like a black cat that got stuck in cement under a ladder. And your little furry fists keep cracking mirrors. Under the opened umbrella in which you sleep." Lucy said. "Which is why we're marching you back to the Gull."

"Speaking of the Gull, why isn't Duke with you?" Nathan asked, eyes narrowing.

"He has a business to run. Theoretically, making a run to an art store wasn't supposed to be fraught with peril. Unless I'm me, of course." The thought of Duke hit me someplace near my abdomen, worse than the sickness already nestled there. Ever since I left him that first time, I hadn't ceased to disappoint. I was an absentee everything to him.

" Unless you're you." Nathan agreed, sighing. His hands mirrored my own, moving across his face in wearied circles. "Right. So where were _you _thinking you were going all covered in paint?"

"The Teagues'. I haven't properly seen either of them since I got back."

"I think we need a chick trip to the bathroom or something." Lucy relented. "Because red is seriously not your colour." She hesitated for a moment, considering. "Before we do anything else. I've actually been kind of assuming you're not gonna snap and set us on fire or anything. Am I right there?"

"I'm not gonna snap." I murmured. I could still feel the undercurrents of their wariness as I made my promise. That was okay. A little fear was healthy when it came to me. "And I know I owe you a lot for not shipping me off to some godforsaken island by this point. But I need this."

They debated. They didn't say a single syllable out loud, or even more than a few in their eyes. But they spoke and I knew it, just like I knew the silk thread of a lie or the crisp chill of elation. I felt it when they made their decision.

"Fine. But-obviously-we have to come. And then we're locking you in your tower for the rest of the night."

"What time is it?" Vague numbers on a digital clock were running through my head, and I knew they meant something. Something like plums.

"Five seventeen."

"Damn."


	11. Wearing Out the Warpaint

**A/N So. It's been a horribly long time since I've updated, and the first 7/8 of this chapter has been sorrowfully wasting away in my documents for too long. Thus. An update is upon us! I'm hoping to speed through the rest of this story in time for Halloween, because I've got something dramatic planned. Wishes and criticism? Thanks, loves. Hope you're all having a fabulous time getting into the season's spirit C: Final note: Technique update! I'm going to try to avoid the phrases 'something like' and 'a lot'. Let's do this! **

"-Yes. Wha-yeah, I got that part, too. Okay, I'm really not that-Did you just call me a glorified swine in French? I'm impressed. That you've managed to master English enough to even begin to butcher a foreign language. No, that wasn't an insult. Yes, I know you speak Russian." I sighed into the phone.

"I am well and truly pissed right now, Rye. I let you out of my sight-to buy _craft supplies-_and you manage to get in a craft store brawl. Who brawls in a craft store? Maybe grannies over knitting patterns, but for God's sake. Now I'm never going to hear the end of this from those two."

"Oh, please. You'll get off with a slap on the wrist, and-no, you're right. You and Nathan don't play nice. Never mind. So. You'll get off with a slap in the _face_. Not that bad, considering."

"Considering all you did was inject your steroid emotions into another human _being _and create the bedazzler from hell?"

"Leanne paints."

"That is so incredibly not the point, dearheart."

"I know." I whispered, sober. "I'm sorry. Really. You don't know how." If only he could feel all the things I felt-the things I felt that were truly mine to feel. But that was a curse I wouldn't cast on anyone. I hadn't become that cruel.

"…Lord. Don't do that. Don't be all obnoxiously unapologetic then all obnoxiously…apologetic. Just sit there miserably scrubbing off that paint and think about what you've done. That's what a good keeper would say, right?"

"Right."

"Right. But we've established I'm not one of those. So sit there miserably scrubbing off that paint and we'll talk about this later." The line died and stole his voice with it.

"You two have a very colourful way of talking to each other." Lucy remarked as she continued rasping a rough cloth over my bare arms. I handed the phone back to Nathan and glumly picked up my own cloth, setting back to work on my face. My hair was obviously going to be the losing battle in this war.

"It comes from being blood brothers in high school."

"Brothers?"

"Back then, he thought I was too cool to be a girl." My lips twitched at the memory.

"Is that all it comes from?"

I considered her more seriously, not pausing in my task. "It comes from one thing as much as the other."

When the last spot of paint that was willing to be removed was gone, we headed out of the diner's bathroom and back onto the streets. We'd stopped shortly after exiting the art store. It was becoming uncomfortable to bear the expressions of everyone we passed. Ironically, burning curiosity really burns. I'd never liked that particular emotion much. Once I was as clean as I was going to get, though, I felt less like a true scarlet girl and more like Ryeland Shields.

The Teagues were gracefully still at the _Harold's _office when we arrived. I pulled the door open with my own fresh bit of anxiety. This was one rejection I couldn't afford.

"Hello?" I called, spreading my fingertips against the glass so Nathan and Lucy could catch it behind me. "Vince? Davey?"

"Why, what kind of sound is that, Dave?"

"I think it's the sound of a bird."

"Or the sound of a rabbit."

"The sound of a goose?"

"Or the sound of a goat."

My teeth found their way through a smile at the old game. "All good guesses, but it's the sound of a Rye."

"Well, look at that. A Rye." The brothers came from their place in the corner, huddled around a tripod.

"And a Nathan and a Lucy." I said as we all met halfway.

"I see." Dave nodded. "So what brings a Rye, a Nathan, and an Audrey our way?"

"I haven't done right by you two since I got back…so this is me trying to fix that."

"Don't worry about things like us, dear. You've got a fair lot of your own going on in this town." The swell of compassion rather than resentment warmed the places in me that had begun to frost with the trouble. It was almost as if Liam was poking me in the side and whispering a rhyme.

"We've all got our stones to carry."

"Well, carry one over here and give us a hug. All those years, I think you owe us about a hundred each."

I obliged, hugging first Vince then Dave. They'd squabble over it later, each trying to prove that I'd missed him more. It would be good squabbling, the kind that keeps families together when they grow old.

"How have you two been?"

"We've been about the same as same. We've actually got a great deal of new projects to bore you with, when you're ready for it."

"I'd like that."

"Does that bag mean you've got some of your own?" Vince.

"Don't get too excited, Vince. I'm sure they're just stacks of polaroids." And there was Dave. I'd initially bonded with the brothers through Vince's sketchwork. Then I had had to pick up photography under Dave's wing, just to keep the peace. Those were the things that intertwined our summer afternoons in eraser shavings and photo clippings.

"Neither. Sorry. I just came from Miss Mari's."

"Ah. That explains the paint in your hair." Dave nodded with somber eyes. "I take it things got a little…?"

"Troubled." The word slipped easily off my tongue because it was for Dave. The Teagues were among the first to guess at my…affliction…which ended up meaning they were also among the first to teach me how to handle it.

"Ah. Have you been doing your exercises and words?" Vince asked.

Blood settled in my cheeks. They'd come up with a system for checking my trouble that worked with Liam's. It was the type of system I didn't want to share with Nathan or Lucy.

"Not for awhile."

"Uh-huh. This," he said with a vague hand motion, "is exactly the sort of thing that happens when you don't listen to the wise Teagues. You start those up tonight, and keep them up until you're mumbling them in your sleep, you hear? You're at the deciding age now where you've got to get a handle on your trouble or else it gets a handle on you. "

"Don't scare her with all that serious talk, Vince." Dave said, feelings overshadowed with disapproval. Concern. Concern was a feeling I hadn't felt in a long time, at least not for my own benefit. It was oddly…nice. "We'll be here for you every step of the way, Ryeland. You can count on that, you can."

"I know." I murmured. "I will." I glanced back at the two officials standing just behind me, two wallflowers jolted out of their own havens. I glanced at the sky raining gold and purple through the windows, streaking sunset in orange and grey. "I won't let you down. Not this time around. I've got to get going. Duke's in a righteous hissy over my catfight today…and you know how unnatural it is for him to be in a position to be righteous. I better go knock him down before his high horse creates a break in the space time continuum."

"You do that, Rye. Come back when you can, okay?"

"You've got it." I gave the boys each a hug-equally timed for the sake of preventing at least one squabble- and led my chauffeurs from the office.

They both fell into step on my right.

"And we're gonna throw away the key."


	12. Vodka Therapy and Stage Angels

**A/N: So! Long overdue, but I finally found some spare time and inspiration to finish this chapter. I had a few setbacks, that of course had to happen since I was finally getting something done -.- Dear computer, it is not okay to spontaneously shut down and reconfigure without my permission, thus erasing the whole page I had and making me start over from scratch. Kthx. On the other hand, this version is a lot better than the two I had before. So thank you, moody computer of moodiness. Anyhoo. I will stop talking to inanimate objects and say thanks for reading. Also, thank you muchly for the reviews. They're quite helpful and they do indeed spur me on when I get a little hopeless with this story. Much love and sea unicorns, 3 C:**

"So." Nathan made an awkward attempt to revive the silent room. We'd been on our way to the Gull when Duke said to just head on to his boat. I didn't try to tell myself it wasn't because of me. There were a lot of things I'd like around my business. Flowers, confetti, and customers are nice. Questionably sane girls who tend to track around mayhem like it's a pet, not especially so. There'd been multiple times this past week where I'd supplied myself sweet little nothings about how I'd been trying my best, how I "didn't really mean to", oh it's the trouble, oh it's because I lost Liam. Not anymore. No. It's because I'm me, and me is often a bad thing to be when it comes to loved ones and sanity. Duke himself seemed to be thinking along the same lines. It was apparent now that our conversation on the phone had largely been made up of deflection. Once I was in proximity, it was impossible to hide the glaring fact that what he was feeling was the strongest, sugarless brew of tea. He was a storm of ragged blue holes and jagged red edges. Disappointment, concern, and anger are emotions that often end up in the mix when my trouble is mixed up.

"So." Lucy seconded. "Can I take this awkward silence as a sign that I can break it? Duke, if you're done being broody over there, we can actually get somewhere." His only answer was to stare ahead darkly.

"He's angry. That's fine. Where exactly are you wanting to go with this, anyways?" I murmured, fingertips at my lips in a bad habit. The action was a reflex, something that echoed all the bitten nails that used to occur whenever my trouble had its way in the past. The only things running through my mind at this point in a sickeningly clear panorama were the faces of the people whose lives I'd recently fucked up. Chris, Janet, Leanne, Darlene…all the people in this room sitting in the dark. All the people who were too far gone to even be here. I felt a farmer rolling in his grave, felt his wife rolling on the other side, felt the dead metal frames of cars and the aftermath of cutting off a toe on my left foot. Being me, there were too many ways to feel regret and death, each one of them digging deeper into me and getting closer to carving out any restraint I had left.

"We're wanting to go anywhere that keeps you and this town in control." Nathan said, sighing. "At this point, though, it's looking a lot harder than it sounded."

"I'm thinking…we should retrace our steps." I replied.

"How so?"

"I wasn't kidding when I said you should put me in a padded room. It's becoming fairly obvious my trial run in society is nothing more than proof that either I'll be the death of this town or this town will be the death of me." I mused the truth of it to myself, kicking my feet up on the low coffee table.

"Get your feet off my table," Duke muttered, speaking for the first time since we'd arrived. ",and stop being so melodramatic. It doesn't look good on you. I don't think a few burning cars, a broken wall, and a clean-up on aisle five constitute the ending of the world as we know it."

I kept my feet where they were, training my eyes levelly on Duke's. "You're forgetting the bruises, glass, and broken bones. You're forgetting the legion of happy townsfolk willing to feed me to the sharks at the drop of a hat."

"I'm going to- oh, man, this sounds so unnatural, but I'm going to actually _agree_with Duke on this one." Nathan said. "Nothing's been broken beyond repair. I don't think it's necessary to give up on you like that. It'd be different if you weren't trying to fight it, if you were manipulating people left and right."

" Not to be a raging pessimist, but I think I'm more with Ryeland on this. I mean, I'm totally with you on the A for effort, but it really is getting way too close to the edge. If she was anyone else, if we'd been handed the cause of all this right from the get-go, we would have sent them out somewhere or fixed their trouble somehow." Lucy said bluntly. The expression on her face took me back in time, to a place where sand flowed cold through my toes, all of them, and the water wept around a corpse, back when-

"I can't see a happy medium here." I whispered. "I can't. I can't function like this, being surrounded by all these people who feel such strange things. This town is too much. My trouble is too awake. Even now, it's hard. I want to play with nature, fix you all up. I'm an alcoholic locked in a vineyard, and nothing is going to change unless you take half of the equation out. And I pick me."

"…Last I checked, best meant best."

I looked back at Duke. "Sometimes, your best isn't good enough."

"We've got time on this." Nathan interrupted. "Maybe not as much as we'd like, but we do. Why don't we do our own little trial and error tonight, see where it takes us, and decide in the morning what we're going to do."

"What are you suggesting?" I asked.

"The Teagues. They said you had exercises. You said you had a playlist. Audrey's helped people with the worst kind of troubles more than once in this town. And you've known Duke since you were kids. So why don't I work on that playlist and Duke can work with you on the exercises while Audrey tries to work her Lucy magic." His words sounded so reasonable, structured…I hated it. I wanted to give in to the inevitable, prove everyone right that I wasn't fit for this place, or any other. But then my mind took me back to that mental graveyard, where more faces, sculpted from wind and worry, reminded me I'd made more than just Duke's deal.

"…I'll try this. If you're willing to take this chance on me, I'd be a fool to pass up on it, wouldn't I?"

"You would." Lucy nodded solemnly.

"So. Who's first?"

It turned out to be Duke first, as Nathan was off searching the internet for a semblance of what Liam had made me while Lucy required time to think up an approach to my trouble. I of course knew the exercises by heart, and Duke was quite often obnoxiously knowledgeable about himself. Even as we sat across from each other on the deck, the thin of his unhappiness clawed at me.

"I can't do this." I said, sounding less hopeless than I had in the sitting room, and much more frustrated.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You said you'd give it a try."

"That was before I thought about this." I made a vague gesture between us.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means no amount of exercises are going to do me any good with you all pissed off at me still."

"Well, I'm sorry that my bad mood is getting in the way of your valiant efforts." I didn't need any superpowers to get the sarcasm poorly disguised in his voice.

"Hey! I _am_trying. It's kind of hard to convince yourself you're worth saving after you've summoned up all kinds of curses in the last- what?- my _whole__life.__" _

"You know what I hear in all that?" He asked, gesturing vaguely back at me. "I hear 'me, me, me'. Ever think that maybe you're not the focus right here? Redemption's all fine and dandy, and I think you've got a great shot at it, but that doesn't mean much when you're in it to win it for yourself. You've got a lot of people to be doing this for, not least of all the people you _will_hurt if you don't get a handle on this and soon."

That was the most he'd said since we'd gotten back, and out of all the mess of words and ideas between the four of us, what he said hit the hardest and closest to the truth. I was totally and completely throwing my own pity party. Truth, my wound-licking was unintentional. But it was shameful nonetheless. Who was I to lay around like some misunderstood puppet, chained forever to her own acidic vices? Owning up to my faults was one thing, and burying myself in them was another. There were much better waters to be drowned in.

"Right." I murmured. "Right." I said louder. "But you're still angry, and that needs to stop before I can do this."

"You'll have to struggle through some of it, because I can't turn my emotions on and off like some of us can. But if you use that little trick you've got, I'm sure you'll find most of it is aimed at myself."

"You know I wouldn't if I couldn't. And you know it doesn't matter who it's for. I'm pretty sure you're blaming yourself for what happened today, and that's too far off the mark, Duke."

"Yeah, I am blaming myself a little. A lot of it could have been avoided if I'd made myself buckle down when it came to you. But I let too much of the old times cloud my judgment."

"….I won't let you say yes next time."

"I'm sure you won't." He let out a slow breath, looking passed me and into the sky drawn dark with night. "You know what? I'm mad at you, too. I've been mad at you for awhile. Probably since you left."

My own breath caught a little in my chest. So many things had happened, had threatened to happen. I'd been living on a very thin line, focusing on the next step in this place and not any step back to where I'd come from. I'd been so focused on being back in Haven and picking up things where they left off, I never really considered exactly where they left off. That included leaving Duke.

"You were there one week, and the next your house was empty. You didn't leave an address. You didn't write. I've kept my eyes on the prize up till now, but how am I supposed to deal with you walking back into my life like you never even left? I think I just want to know why."

"…Honestly? I needed it to be quick, razor sharp so maybe we could avoid a lot of….this. It was selfish. Like most of the things I've been doing lately, huh?"

"It wasn't because you wanted to cut me out along with everything else?" It was an oddly enlightening sensation, seeing Duke made vulnerable. Lines along his face, once granted in their familiarity, the easily discernible softness of his indecision or strong lines of him being obnoxiously correct, seemed too far out of reach. I was out of practice with having him in my life. Years could do that to a friendship.

"I think you're too aware that you're too much to put aside just like that. It hurt, for a long time after I left. It still does. It sucks, knowing everything that could have been. Knowing everything that happened while I was away. All the stuff I should've been here for."

"Got married. Had a baby. Both of them gone."

"How'd that happen?"

"One was fate, the other was a curse. A lot of it was Haven."

"Has a way of breaking the things meant to last, doesn't it?" I could've been jealous, but the girl didn't really matter and I felt the sorrow settled in between his bones when he thought of the baby.

"It does. What happened to you out there?"

"In the Real World? I got a cat and went to prom."

"I bet the cat ran away. And you probably went with a loser."

"The cat did run away. And you'd say that no matter whom I went with."

"You're right." We exchanged a glance.

"You still mad?"

"I'll deal with it. So." He clapped his hands, straightening up his posture. "What are these mythical exercises everyone's talking about?"

My stomach knotted up a more than a little bit. Thinking of doing Liam's exercises with someone else felt like a familial sin, like I was moonwalking on his grave. Logically, I knew he wanted me to do whatever was necessary to keep myself sane and keep everyone else out of harm's way. Out of my way.

"I'll buy you a whole six pack if you just tell them we did them." I whispered, not even meaning the words, not really. "I won't even swipe one when you're not looking."

"This is me saying no, Rye. For you, I'm saying no." He held out his hand. "It won't be that bad. I might even let you drink it off later, if it is."

I sat staring at his outstretched fingers a moment, sitting cold with the night wind and all my Liam thoughts and my Janet thoughts and all my thoughts that made me afraid. The type of thoughts my trouble liked to twist and nettle in my head until I gave up and gave in. I made a decision and I took his hand.

"This isn't working." I threw my hands up for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past five seconds. "I can still feel you."

"Obviously not, if you're gonna give up so soon. The point is to get inside your own head, right?"

"Right."

"Then stop worrying about this, that, and the other thing and think about how you really feel. It's okay to be a little selfish right now. In fact, use me as a shining example."

I shot him a look. "You're hardly a role model for anything at all."

"Humor me."

"Fine. You're straightforward, and blunt, and obnoxious."

"All qualities of a truly spectacular part of the man-race. So copy me."

"Um." It was hardly fair that my trouble made it so easy to feel what others did, to get high off their passions and sorrows, but it only honestly showcased mine when they were convenient for causing havoc. "I'm…tired. Tired of feeling unstable. Like I don't know what's coming next. Like I might kill someone again. Like this time I'll like it."

Duke nodded. "Pretty good things to not want. At least your priorities are straight."

"I'm tired to the point where I just wish whatever's going to happen will happen already. I want to fall asleep in the fallout and let things lay where they landed."

"A little less healthy, but we're getting somewhere."

"And underneath that…" I tickled my trouble, poked it, prodded it awake. Made it work for me for once rather than the other way round. Grudgingly, it whispered in my veins, telling me what was what inside myself. I focused on the murmur and in doing so, drifted away from the steel strong emotions I could feel from Duke, from Nathan and Lucy inside. "I'm sad. Lonely. Afraid. Fuck, I'm a living, breathing cliché." I widened my eyes. That was an unpleasant truth. I waited for a snarky response from Duke, but he remained silent, letting me wait out my trouble next. I nudged it again, this time directing it at one of its favorite targets; Duke himself. I let the trouble take me, try to fiddle and shift his emotions until they suit it fine. Nothing.

"I did it!" I cried. I reached forward, grabbed Duke by the shoulder, and stole his cheek with a kiss. "We did it. Thanks, Croc."

"That's great." He smiled. "And…that is officially my one good deed of the day."

"Oh shush, you. Just shut up and be excited. I mean, this doesn't mean much in the long run, but it proves I can manage some sort of control over my trouble."

"How long will it last?" Forever asking the questions that mattered.

"It will last…however long my will does. I'm a druggie for my trouble , though, so that might not be very long at all."

"We'll help you."

"I'll hurt you." I said it with no inflection, because the truth doesn't need adornment.

"I can handle that."

Another figure appeared on deck before I could reply.

"My turn." Lucy said.

I turned to Duke. "I'm going to need that drink now."


	13. Sleeping with the Fishes

**A/N Huzzah! For I have written. Sorry it took me forever and a day, I've had a thousand and one things to do lately. But I'll get better at updating since a couple commitments have settled down. Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays! **

Lucy and I sat staring at each other for a few long minutes before one of us ventured to break the silence. It wasn't me.

"I assume the touchdown dancing was because you two made progress?"

"Yeah."

"And how do we feel about that?"

That broke the little spell of discomfort and anxiety Lucy had over me. "Seriously? We are so very not gonna therapist me, Lucy."

She smiled but it didn't touch her eyes. "I'll do whatever I think is best. But I'll let it go for now, since I'm sure you and Duke had your share of it."

"So what's your idea, then? Did you think of a way to…Lucy us out of this mess?"

She looked thoughtful, threading her fingers and dispersing them again and again in a concentrated cycle. "Look. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure where to go with this. I don't think I can approach this quite like I did with the other troubles I've seen. I've only really used two approaches to these things; touch and logic. For the man with the homicidal shadow, we put him in a dark house so his shadow could never take shape. For the speed of light guy, I held him down, and even that didn't keep him from speeding away in warp drive at the very end. I'm thinking that logic isn't gonna help us out with yours, though, Ryeland, because the only thing I can think of is using is some sort of drug that will numb out your emotions."

"That could work."

"Have you tried it before?"

"No. When I was too young to prescribe myself, my parents had no idea what was going on, and when I became old enough I never had any issues with my trouble."

"That makes me shy of doing it, then. What if your trouble reacts to the drugs? Or sends you into an emotionless coma for the next couple decades? I don't want to do something that will risk you in the process."

"Don't calculate me into this. Maybe we've established I deserve another shot at this, but I think it's a stretch to say my shot is worth risking a freak out because we don't want to compromise me. This process needs to be entirely selfless."

"…I'm gonna leave that as a moot point for now. So back to the magic. I'm thinking touch is our best shot at staying your trouble. Would you like to try it?"

She began to reach towards me. I couldn't help but flinch as images of cold sand and colder toes-dead toes, toes that weren't mine—entered my mind.

"What's wrong?"

"It's that day." I whispered. "I've never been able to get passed that day."

"What day…?"

"The day you were there, Lucy."

"You…at the beach? The Colorado…?" From the look on her face, I realized she mustn't remember it, remember my face or hers reflected in the water. I guess I hadn't talked to her that day or any after. I'd assumed she'd always know, that that day, she felt it too…

"Yes, Lucy. That day. I thought you must know I was there. Duke and I…at the beach, but…why we were there, it doesn't matter. I can't shake that day away."

"What happened that day? What do you know?" Her face looked so much more alive than I'd ever seen, sparked with interest and maybe just a touch of fear. I had to rely on my eyes, because my trouble was sleeping.

"Not a cent more than you, I'd say. I just remember how it felt…"

"What felt?"

"Dying. That man in the water. He was dead, but…" My voice dwindled into a whisper, then silence. Still, the unspoken words choked me in the back of my throat.

"But?"

"I _felt _him. I felt the emotions of a _corpse_, Lucy. And that scared me so bad I stayed in my room for a week, shaking and trying to make sense of it. But you can't make sense when a dead man talks."

"What…what did you…get from him?"

"That's the secret, Lucy. _I don't know._" Not any more, I didn't. I'd locked it under a floorboard in the base of my skull, too young to handle the information. I felt like I was back there on the sand, frozen with salt water dripping sickly over my feet as the chatter of a thousand…

"Can you try?"

I felt ill. "No. No, I can't do this Lucy. This is why…this is _exactly _the sort of reason why I couldn't be in this place. It kills me." I stood up.

"Wait, we haven't even tried—"

"We can try later. Right now, I need to be away from this." I encountered Nathan on the stairs, a cd in hand.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked, eyes wide as he took me in. He glanced up to where I had been with Lucy, a question smartly locked on his lips.

"Yeah, no, I'm—I'm good. The wrong stuff just came up. I'm just going to, uh, take a breather."

"Can I—is there anything I can do?"

"Can you just go talk with Lucy? Let her know it's not her fault."

"Sure thing…" He looked nonplussed, like he wanted to do something more.

I rubbed my face with both hands. "Thanks."

I started to leave him, then stopped midstep. "Wait." I turned back and touched his shoulder briefly. "Here." Even though my trouble was very much asleep, I discovered that while I couldn't feel any of the others' emotions, I could still give and take. That was either a blessing or a curse, as yet undetermined.

"…" Nathan looked a blank a moment, taken in by the sense of touch he'd lost for so long. "Are you sure you should do this now?"

"We had a deal. If anything, I need to be keeping my word. Like I said. Something to focus on." I felt for the numbness in my feet and hands, stomach, face. An equal exchange. That made my heart a little lighter, giving something back.

I left him for real that time, and went to find Duke. Somehow I ended up falling asleep on the couch instead.

I was being swallowed up, eaten alive. I was floating in space, in a galaxy, I was a star…no, I was falling, falling to the blackest part of the ocean to be consumed by an ethereal fire. There was no oxygen in my lungs and my eyes were shut against the harsh salt. I couldn't breathe. And there was a hand wrapped around my ankle, pulling me to the brim of nothing as I drowned. His eyes were open, pale white and filmed over like a creature from an old horror film. He whispered his mouth open, why was he not gasping for air like I? Because he was dead. And I was dying his death. He spoke to me then, said things you can't know when you're alive. He told me a dead man's tale.

I woke up in a silent fit, gasping for air as if I'd really died and was only just now coming back to life in the real world. I caught my breath, cutting off the ragged thump in my chest and the prickles stuck to my fingertips. I looked around. Lucy lay on the other couch, sound asleep. Nathan sat on the hard floor, head rested next to her knee. I wondered briefly if he felt his dreams as much as I. I glanced back at the weight next to me, too solid and animate to be the hard seat of the couch. It was Duke. He was leaning away from me. How long had they been in here, talking? It had to be the next day already, but not far enough for the new sun to rise. I blearily gazed, took them all in. Danger passed, sleep crept its way up my body, acquiescing to how bone-tired I was. And as I fell back into Duke, resting my head against his chest, I let it.


End file.
